New Christmas Tradition?

 

Satsumas filling the space where two rolls were removed to be eaten while still warm

 I decided that this year it would be nice to have fresh cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning. Steps were taken, and some of those steps were photographed which means another recipe post. 

 While I have a recipe for cinnamon rolls that I suspect I started using more than forty years ago, I felt that a new recipe was required this year though I can't say why. I've been feeling a bit hazy about a lot of things lately. T'is the season, perhaps.

Kitchen on Christmas Eve around midnight

 

  Regardless, I settled on "overnight cinnamon rolls 1" from the allrecipes.com site, though I made a few adaptations as I went. The "milk" I used was a combination of 1% and half-and-half since that's what we had, and I beat the eggs a little before adding them to the other ingredients. Flour was added until it seemed about right for kneading and then, of course, more flour was added while kneading.

The dough really did feel utterly lovely after it had risen (which took more like two hours than one; see later notes about coldness of kitchen). It rolled out nicely and I brushed it with a bit of melted butter rather than wetting the edges with water. I also brushed the pan with the remains of the melted butter in lieu of using shortening or oil.

Rather than refrigerating the rolls for the second rising I left them sitting on the kitchen table; as Scott pointed out, it's plenty cool near those windows. That approach seemed to work well enough and when I finally got up the next morning I could jump right to the preheating the oven stage. I also sprinkled a little more brown sugar / cinnamon mix on the top of the rolls since I hadn't included all of it earlier. This likely resulted in darker tops. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

What appeared to my wondering eyes Christmas morning (aka rolls post-overnight rising)

And only now do I remember the true impetus for making cinnamon rolls; I had icing left from decorating the army of darkness cookies* and I didn't want it to go to waste.

*Regiment of Army of Darkness

I used that rather than the corn syrup horror included in the allrecipes recipe. It melted a bit when added too soon to the two we ate with our tea while opening stockings, but was quite perfect for the survivors featured in the first photo of the post.

A properly civilized start to the day

Somewhat less tidy a little while later**

**Yes, Scott was the happy recipient of some used doorknob plates from Earthwise Salvage; we know how to celebrate the birth of our Savior around here.